Ballad of the Green Beret
by kilroyactual117
Summary: The Traveler awakens every Guardian with a purpose, newly awakened Gaurdian Mark Kelly is no different. Awakened with no memory of his previous life, the only clue he has to who he was and what he must do next is an odd symbol painted on his armor, flashes of memories of battles long forgotten, and a memory of a red-headed woman that, for some reason, he knows he must find.
1. Prologue

**AN: Alright Guardians, welcome to my first Destiny story. I've got a pretty good idea where this one is going, so expect regular and reliable updates. Enjoy!**

* * *

Blackness enveloped him, as it had for some time.

He had never imagined death would be like this, staring at blackness and drifting for an eternity as his memories faded away.

Then again, he didn't really remember how he imagined death. In fact, as he sorted through his remaining memory, he found he had forgotten even the simplest of things. What seemed like only moments ago, he had forgotten his own name, and he had no recollection of how he died, or where, or why.

The only thing he could remember now was something called training. For him it was less of a memory and more of a basic instinct.

He didn't know how or where he had acquired this instinct, but it was there none the less. It taught him to use weapons, armor, battlefield tactics. In a way, it scared him that the only thing he remember about his life was that he had lived, and that he had lived to fight.

What he had fought was anyone's guess, but he remembered that it was powerful, powerful enough to kill him, and by the limited memory he had, many others.

He still had the urge to try and fight that same enemy, but he knew it was futile. Even as his memory drifted away he still held to the fact that death was permanent.

He floated like this for what seemed like ages, losing more and more of his memory until he saw, in the distance, a spark of light.

He focused on that light. It was warm, soothing, healing; a welcome change from the blackness and something he wanted to be as close as possible to.

He slowly felt himself regain control of his body as he focused on the light and it began to fill his vision. He smiled as the light slowly began to take up his entire field of view, warming his extremities as it materialized into an image of a forest, rusted cars, and a wall.

Somehow he knew that wall was important, and that he needed to get to it.

He fought against his own paralysis, struggling to move his arms and legs so he could touch this image and figure out it's significance, and maybe use it to recover his many lost memories

Words began to fill his mind that he knew had to do with this image; Russia, Cosmodrome, defend, evacuation, and the collapse among them.

The feeling in his arms and legs flooded back to him as he began to piece these words into their places. This was an image of The Cosmodrome, in a place called Russia. He had died died defending this place from an event called The Collapse.

In his rational mind, none of that made any sense. As far as he was concerned he had spent his whole life drifting in this black void. His memory extended no further, but his instincts told him that he could go there.

This image and this light was all too important.

He thrashed, struggling to move any part of his body. He inhaled a deep breath, something he hadn't done in a long time, and then he woke.


	2. Chapter 1: Hello world

His eyes snapped open, his blurry vision making his surroundings unrecognizable. He tried to grab a hold of something and steady himself, but that only made his head spin further as he tried to regain control of his body.

As weird as it was to think about, he hadn't used it in a while.

As his vision cleared and his sense of touch and smell returned to him, he realized that he was laying on muddy ground in a suit of armor that felt very familiar to him.

He blinked hard and cleared his vision, ready to face the world.

His newly opened eyes were met first by blinding light, and then a near perfect representation of the image he had seen before his awakening, the cold Russian landscape stretching out as far as the eye could see.

Before he could take in the scenery in full, however, he was startled by a mechanical object that zipped into his vision, startling him and causing him to backpedal along the muddy ground with his hands.

The object was angular and had eight, small, polygonal shapes sticking off from a center section that rotated, and a mechanical eye that peered at him intently.

It moved closer to him, and let out a small laugh, wiring and clicking and spinning its small limbs aimlessly.

"Titan, you're awake. Good," it said happily.

The object's words brought him into the stark reality that life was no longer a dream, and snapped his brain into overdrive. He analyzed its words. Titan, was that his name. What was this thing, had it killed him? How?

Pit didn't matter, he couldn't take any chances, or at least some part of him believed he couldn't.

He instinctively reached to his side, knowing for some reason that he would find a rifle laying there. He stood rapidly, shouldering the rifle and aiming its barrel directly at the mechanical object's eye.

Another set of words invaded his memory as he yanked the weapon's charging handle and set his finger on the trigger. This time, the memories were about the rifle.

 _Khvostov 7G-02, automatic rifle, caliber 5.56x45_ , he thought rather cryptically, only half knowing what any of that meant.

As his hands griped the weapon tighter, memories of this rifle began to flood back to him. Several images of himself lying prone flashed back to him. He was wearing camouflage clothing and firing this rifle at targets in one memory, and wearing the same armor he wore now, stuck in the middle of some kind of battle in another.

He wasn't sure what all of it meant, but he knew that this rifle was his, and he had been trained to use it.

"Whoa there Titan," said the mechanical object, "that's no way to greet a your brand new Ghost."

"Ghost?" He asked, keeping his rifle trained on the object.

He had heard that word before, and he remembered it having nothing to do with the kind of object that now floated in front of him. He stepped closer to the object, keeping the rifle's barrel aimed at it as he approached.

"Who are you?" He questioned, "what is a Titan? who am I? Where am I? What am I doing?"

The Ghost retreated, wiring and clicking. It seemed equal parts scared and frustrated by his reaction.

The Ghost let out a mechanical sigh, and floated to his side, but he tracked it with the weapon all the way.

"I suppose you have questions, that's fair," deadpanned the Ghost, "you are a Titan, a soldier, and a Guardian of the last City. Your armor is proof enough of all of that."

He glanced down briefly at his armor. It was painted woodland camouflage and covered in pockets containing ammunition for the rifle he held. On his chest piece was a painted on inscription that read _U.S. Army_ , and a small insignia that consisted of a sword interlaced between lightning bolts resting over an arrowhead, and a tab that read _Airborne_ in gold letters.

The meaning of all this had been lost on him, but if he was a member of an Army then the training he possessed and the memories he had would make sense.

That was it, he was a soldier, and if this "Ghost" knew more about him, than he had no choice but to follow it.

He lowered his weapon, keeping it at the ready just in case, and let out a breath he hadn't mean to hold.

"Tell me more," he said less forcefully, "please."

The Ghost whirred and clicked. It looked as though it was searching for information. It scanned his armor with an odd blue light before shooting a blue beam of energy at him, grabbing hold of something that rested on his chest.

It was a stamped piece of metal on a chain wrapped around his neck.

"Dog tags, I believe these are called," said the Ghost as he brought the metal into his vision, "your identity should be on here somewhere."

He raised an eyebrow and studied the tags, trying to discern what they said.

"Kelly, Mark, C, SSgt," he said aloud, reading the tag's inscription. He recognized the first inscription as his name, but what could SSgt. mean?

The Ghost dropped the tag back to his chest, looking at him intently.

"Find the answers you were looking for?" Inquired the Ghost, circling around him.

Mark shook his head, looking down at the ground in front of him. He fought to gain any recollection of who he really was, and how he had ended up here, but so much of his memory was simply blank and only gave him a headache when he tried to think about it.

He figured knowing more would only confuse him further.

He surveyed his surroundings and rested his rifle across his chest. Hulks of cars surrounded him on all sides, skeletons eerily resting in each one of them. A wall to his right towered over him, and in the distance he saw enormous spaceships on launch pads, rusted and ready to fall apart. It looked as though the entire world had deteriorated to the point of collapse in his absence.

This was one big, dangerous world he had forgotten about.

"What do I do now?" He asked the Ghost, who still rested at his side.

As if on cue he heard a sound in the distance. It was a strange, high pitched howling that he found all too familiar. He couldn't place his finger on what it was, but he knew he had heard it all too many times before. He turned to the line of cars where he as heard the sound and leveled his rifle, backing up slowly.

"Well," said the Ghost, "if you want to survive the next ten minutes, I'd advise you follow me."

Mark nodded and shouldered his rifle, following the Ghost as it floated towards the wall, floating, whirling and clicking aimlessly.

"We'll need to find you transport," continued the Ghost, "I'm tracking a military jump ship docked in one of the wall's hanger bays, it's this way."

Mark nodded, and continued following.

It lead him to a small opening just beyond a rickety old set of stairs that lead into the wall.

Mark entered slowly, checking his corners and making sure nothing had followed him, his reactions based on mere training and instinct.

The Ghost lead him to a cavernous, open section of the wall, consisting of little more than an abyssal pit and a small catwalk that lead over it, with virtually no light whatsoever.

The Ghost floated quickly towards the ceiling.

"Hold on, I'll get the lights," it said.

A moment latter, the lights flicked on, and revealing a crowd of alien looking creatures and small, flying drones clustered about the catwalk. The creatures varied from mid-sized, four armed, rifle wielding humanoids to thin, two armed, pistol wielding creatures, and the drones appeared to be little more advanced than floating guns.

Another flash of memories came to him. Images of hundreds of these creatures clustered about the outside of the wall flashed before his eye. They were leading large, six legged armored vehicles, all coming to kill him.

"Fallen," exclaimed his Ghost, "take them out."

Mark didn't need to be told twice. He shouldered his weapon and opened fire, letting lose a string out rounds and chewing through most of them with ease.

They fired back, bolts of blue energy racing towards him as he ducked behind the cover of a low, metal wall. The energy slammed into the wall, shaking the already rickety catwalk and making Mark question wether or not it would continue to hold up.

He stood and fired back, calmly settling his crosshairs on the Fallen, as the Ghost had called them.

He dropped them slowly and methodically, using short bursts to knock them out until only a few remained. He leaped over the wall and advanced towards them slowly; firing, moving, and forcing them back.

They fired at him, but he let his armor and shields absorb most of the impact, allowing him to drop most of the offending Fallen with ease.

When the last one fell he sprinted forward, moving off the catwalk as quickly as possible and into a small tunnel.

It was eerily empty, and he advanced with caution, slowly scanning for any signs of more Fallen.

"The hangar bay is just a little further," commented his Ghost, "I'd advise you move quickly. I'm tracking more Fallen."

Mark picked up the pace, still keeping an eye out for any more Fallen.

The tunnel ended quickly at a ledge overlooking a dimly lit room. The room was littered with shipping crates, and work lights near the other side illuminated a jump ship that was docked on a refueling platform in the center.

It had a flying-wing style of design and was painted in the same camouflage pattern as his armor, a three striped flag was painted on its side with an inscription in a foreign language that his armor automatically translated to _Russian Airforce_.

He jumped off the ledge and into the dimly lit room, allowing his Ghost to light his surroundings. The Ghost cast a light on several Fallen in the room around him, all taking aim at him and readying for a fight.

He ducked behind a nearby corrugated steel box and took aim, trying to take out the larger, four legged ones first.

From his left, one of them began to fire at him with some kind of sniper rifle, slowly chipping away at his already limited cover and forcing him to duck down further. He tried to return fire, but the sniper fire combine with fire from the rest of the Fallen kept him from placing any effective shots.

He cursed, and decided to make a run for the ship.

He vaulted over the top of the box, running as fast as he could towards the ship and staying behind cover as best he could.

Rounds struck his shield with increasing pace as he neared the spacecraft, bring his shields down to a critical level as the Ghost started the ship for him.

He dove behind another stack of shipping containers near the ship, letting them absorb the rounds fired by the pursuing Fallen.

Behind him, the ship roared to life as the Ghost began to start up its systems, its thrusters firing and bringing it slightly off the ground.

"This thing is barely holding together," said the Ghost over the radio, "the transmat system is broken, you'll have to board manually."

Mark cursed once again, and dashed towards the ship, his shields having recharged only moments ago. The Ghost dropped the boarding ramp, and he jumped on, barely catching onto a handhold as the Ghost fired the ship's thrusters, jet washing the remaining Fallen off their feet as the ship flew low out over the horizon, freeing him from the wall.

He entered the boarding ramp, closing it behind him and moving to the ship's small cockpit.

The Ghost was already there, wiring and clicking and steering the ship through small, curious beams of light it used to manipulate control surfaces.

"Where are we going?" Asked Mark simply.

He should have had so many more questions than that, but he couldn't think of any. Dying had knocked just about all the wonder out of him.

"The Last Safe City on Earth," said the Ghost simply, "You were brought back to life to defend it by the Traveler."

Another flash appear before Mark's eyes at the mention of the Traveler. A white orb, easily the size of a city. He remembered it floating over the earth, firing beams of light and energy at something. He couldn't remember what it was attacking, or where he had seen the traveler before, but he knew it was important, even before his death.

He looked up and saw the Ghost facing him slightly, its mechanical eye studying him as it simultaneously steered the ship, clearly sensing, or expecting his confusion.

"If you remember the Traveler from your old life, then you may not recognize it now," he continued, "it used the last of its energy to defend the city it built. Now it brings Guardians like you back from the dead to defend it. Each has their purpose, now you just have to find yours."

Mark nodded. He'd love to know the reason he had been brought back to life, and start to get back on the path he had started some untold years ago, but right now, he'd settle for fitting the pieces of his old life back together.


	3. Chapter 2: How ya been?

Mark stayed relatively silent for the rest of the ride. The Ghost filled him in on a few things; his abilities as a Titan, his sparrow, his weapons, basic things, but not much else.

Honestly, he wasn't sure he could absorb much more information. He needed the time to think more than anything. He tried, for a moment, to fight to recall more of his old life, but it was exhausting and pointless. So many mental barriers had built themselves around these memories that trying to think about them was like trying to walk through a brick wall.

He decided to sit in silence and try to relax and recover from the most adrenaline fueled awakening he had had in what he could remember of his life.

It wasn't until the Ghost alerted him that they were approaching the City that he finally stood and looked out the ship's canopy at the view of earth.

The City came quickly into view. It was a sprawling metropolis, surrounded by high walls that were laced with gun emplacements and foot patrols. The skyline of the City was mostly blocked by a large, white orb he recognized as the Traveler from his memory.

The Ghost was right, it did look significantly different. It was tarnished and charred from conflict. Multiple sections of it were missing, exposing its skeletal frame. It barely looked able to stay in the sky.

His attention was snapped away from it when the Ghost brought the jumpship onto an approach vector to a large tower that dominated the City's skyline. It guided the jumpship into a nearby hanger bay, parking it and disengaging from the controls before turning to face him.

"the Last City awaits, Guardian," it said, lowering the boarding ramp and exiting at its usual, leisurely pace.

Mark paused for a minute and drew his rifle before following. This was all still a bit foreign to him, and he figured he was better off keeping his guard up for now at least.

He walked down the ramp, rifle held against his chest and at the ready, watching as three people approached him at a somewhat quickened pace.

Towards the center were three odd looking men. One wore armor, not unlike his own, that was painted white with red accents, but his face was a bright, glowing, alien blue. He was flanked by another blue skinned man it yellow robes, who was carrying a datapad in his left hand, and another, much taller person who wore an armored face shield and long, white robes. Flanking the group were two, skeletal robots, simplistic in design and carrying odd looking auto rifles that were much more advanced than his own.

Mark tensed as the robots stopped and readied their weapons, but the other three approached, unconcerned by the robot's caution and undaunted by him.

"Welcome Guardian," said the one in the white robes, "we have been expecting you."

Mark raised an eyebrow.

"You have?" He inquired.

The white robed man nodded and stepped forward from the other two.

"Well, I have," he continued, "I am the Speaker. I speak for the Traveler and its light. It protects us and guides our city. Without it, we would all be nothing but survivors, striking out on our own in the dark. It has awakened you and given you purpose, Guardian."

 _Purpose?_ He thought to himself.

He hoped that word would trigger some kind of flashback to something, but it didn't. If the Traveler had awakened him for a purpose, surely he would have remembered it.

He didn't get long to think before the heavily armored man with blue skinned approached, smiling at him and laughing slightly.

"Looks like the Traveler gave me someone useful for a change," he said, gesturing to the insignia on Mark's chest and extending his hand to shake, "I'm commander Zavala. I lead the City's Titans. I'm proud to have a tested warrior like you join our ranks."

Make shook his hand, and Zavala reached over to grab his dog tags, looking them over and smiling.

"Welcome, Staff Sergeant Mark Kelly."

Mark looked at him with an odd expression, then down to his insignia. Clearly it meant more than he realized.

The blue one in yellow robes brushed Zavala out of the way, clearly sensing Mark's confusion.

"Please Zavala, he clearly remembers nothing," he said, looking up from his datapad, "I am Master Rahool, Cryptarch of the Tower. I analyze all of the Tower's data, and that insignia of yours was the mark of a great warrior before the Collapse."

He looked down at his datapad and brought up a file with the same insignia on it.

"I'm afraid the true meaning of it was lost to time, but this battle song identifies it as the mark of fighting soldiers from the sky, fearless men who jump and die, a respected and feared unit by the title of the Green Berets. A cryptic meaning, but impressive none the less."

Another flash of memories triggered as the lines of the song were uttered. Memories from various battles he had fought flashed before his eyes; battles against humans, the Fallen, and several other enemies could neither name nor recognize.

The mental fog continued to hold him back, however. He knew more was there, but he wasn't going to be able to get to it any time soon.

To save him from his confusion, and from the Cryptarch's rambling, the Speaker stepped forward, halting the Cryptarch before he could continue.

"Regardless of your prior service Guardian, we are all equals here, equals in the fight to defend the Last Safe City on Earth. Now, as I said before Guardian, the Traveler awakens each new Guardian with a purpose. What is yours?"

Mark stared at him blankly for a moment. The only thing he remembered living for was to fight, but surely he had lived for something else.

"I don't know," he deadpanned, "I didn't even know my own name an hour ago."

The Speaker laughed and clapped a hand on his shoulder.

"I'm sure you will find it in time Guardian. In the mean time, I'm sure the Cryptarch can help you unlock the secrets of your armor."

The Cryptarch nodded as the Speaker stepped away and began to scan Mark's armor with his tablet.

"Golden age armor is always so interesting," he mused as he continued to scan it, much to the chagrin of Mark, who was tensed and still held his rifle at the ready.

"Maybe we can find some clues to your purpose in your armor Guardian," he continued.

Mark hesitated for a moment, and instinctively backed away. Something about him was very opposed to giving up his armor, but he shook the feeling off. If this was the way to piece together his life then so be it.

He carefully took of his helmet, revealing a man in his late twenties, his black hair in a short-cropped military haircut, and his bright green eyes squinting after seeing the light of day without a polarized visor for the first time in an untold number of years.

He tensed as the Cryptarch accepted his helmet and plugged a cable into it to download it's memory onto his tablet, but tried his best to hide his discomfort.

Commander Zavala clapped his hand on his shoulder.

"Come on, let's go get you some proper armor," he said with a slight smile.

Mark nodded silently and followed him off into the Tower.

* * *

Mark was beginning to become more uncomfortable by the second in this tower.

Clearly, despite the apocalypse it had endured, humanity was more advanced now than ever, and that alone was beginning to overwhelm him.

He had learned quickly of his newfound powers that had been gifted to him by the traveler, and now he felt more nervous than ever that he might accidentally trigger them and kill someone. The very thought that his own fist could emit a deadly discharge of electricity powerful enough to kill was unnerving to him.

Although he had little recollection of wether or not materials like smart matter had existed in his own time, the ability of just about any Guardian to create and dissolve objects out of thin air was alarming to say the least.

Even the night he had had to sleep on all this didn't make him any more comfortable. He had just tossed and turned restlessly, not content to sleep or even just lay back and relax.

The one thing he did feel comfortable in, however, was the new armor Commander Zavala had given him.

It was significantly more sturdy and thicker than his old armor, while also being flexible and easy to wear. Hiding behind a wall of metal in that way made him feel safe and protected against this new world he would have to face.

Maybe that was why, despite the slight discomfort it afforded, he loved wearing heavy armor.

Still, he kept some of his old armor's components for the sake of familiarity. The Cryptarch had wanted to break it down into smart matter, but he had left it in a box in his jumpship, not even willing to trust it to his newly assigned vault, and attaching only useful pieces to his new armor.

He wanted to keep it with him to remind him of his old life. He wasn't about to get rid of it if there was a chance it would help him remember more in the future.

As for his new armor, he had repainted the logo of the Green Berets onto his chest, and although he was still fuzzy on why that logo was so important, the Cryptarch gave his membership of the unit a ringing endorsement. He had also repainted the rest of his armor in the same blue-green digital camouflage color as his old armor, despite the fact that the pattern didn't seem to work very well at all as camouflage, and reattached his combat knife to the left side of his chest.

Keeping these few components around made his new armor feel more whole. He felt almost as though he needed them, even though he knew most of the changes were still cosmetic.

It was all still fuzzy.

"Guardian," called the Cryptarch to him, waking him from his thoughts.

Master Rahool had spent the time he had been preparing and sleeping, not seeming to mind the overtime in the slightest, trying to decode the information contained on his armor to no avail. Most of the information was shrouded in military grade encryption, set to destroy any information that he attempted to access without authorization.

Hopefully he had some good news.

"What have you found," asked Mark simply, looking over the Cryptarch's shoulder at the computer monitor he was examining.

The Cryptarch shrugged, scrolling through some images on the computer's screen.

"Mostly maps and logistical information, nothing of use to us now, but I did find this," he said before bringing up one last image.

Mark's eyes went wide and more memory fragments began to pass before his eyes as he examined the image.

The image was of a woman in her late twenties with bright, red hair, and intense, green eyes. She was wearing an ID badge on a lanyard and a blue digital camouflage uniform. In the background behind her was several more people in similar uniforms and a large spacecraft, similar to the ones he had seen in Old Russia.

For some reason, she looked like she was shying away from the camera as though she didn't want her picture taken, but she was still smiling.

Flashes of memories began to flood his mind of this woman.

The memories were of intense happiness and sadness. One was a short lived image of her in a white dress, autumn colors surrounding her. Another was of her crying on his shoulder, looking absolutely crushed and sad enough to make him nauseous even at the memory of it, and finally he remembered himself taking that very picture.

It had been a bittersweet moment by his memory. She was going to leave him for a long time after that picture was taken, but still he had known she would come back.

"Guardian," he heard the Cryptarch say, stopping the flow of the memories.

He stood there, dazed for another moment, wishing he the memories to continue, but they had frozen for good.

He irrationally felt angry at the man for having interrupted him. Those memories had felt good, and in a way more real than the ones he had felt before. Up until now, they were his only memories that didn't involve war.

"Are you feeling alright?" Pressed the Cryptarch.

Mark pinched the beige of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut, trying to regain his focus.

"I'm fine," he said, deciding not to bring up the memories.

The Cryptarch nodded and began to zoom and enhance the image, highlighting the ID badge that hung around the woman's neck. Because of how she had been moving when the picture was taken, the details of the badge were distorted and blurry.

"I can't make out her name, but that badge identifies here as part of the US Navy's Technological Intelligence division. She must have served aboard a colony ship before the Collapse."

The Cryptarch pondered this for a few more moments, before closing the image and starting to sort through some additional information.

"It's probably nothing though Guardian," he said dismissively.

Mark practically leapt out of his armor to stop him, yanking the Cryptarch's finger from the mouse and pulling the image back up.

The Cryptarch was startled and angry at his transgression, but Mark didn't care.

Something about this woman was very important.

The Cryptarch looked ready to protest, but seeing the look in Mark's eyes he decided against it.

"I need to know who this is," Mark practically barked, searching the image for anything that could identify her.

The Cryptarch smiled slightly and laughed, turning to face the screen once again.

"I see you've found your purpose Guardian?"

"Yes," responded Mark without a second of hesitation, "How do I find her?"

The Cryptarch frowned, shaking his head.

"Guardian, you've been dead for a long time, and if she hasn't become a Guardian yet, she's dead as well. I'm sorry."

Mark was infuriated by the mere thought of that. He didn't know much about this woman, but he knew she was important.

He needed to find her, and he knew he would, or at very least he would die trying.

This was his purpose, he was sure of it, and the Traveler wouldn't have reawakened him for a purpose that was impossible to fulfill.

"You said I have a purpose," he spat, "well this is it, I'm sure of it. She's out there, somewhere. Now, where can I find her?"

The Cryptarch rolled his eyes at Mark's demanding tone, not having any inclination as to the thoughts that had just rocketed through Mark's head, but still he thought for a moment, searching his mind for a solution.

"Well," he said absentmindedly, "an old warmind AI by the name of Rasputin still controls a lot of Earth's military infrastructure, and should have access to old military records. He tends not to be very hospitable towards us, but seeing as you were a soldier before the Collapse, maybe he'd be willing to help you find her."

Mark didn't need to be told twice. The moment the Cryptarch finished Mark had already started leaving.

He grabbed the new, oddly shaped Suros auto rifle he had been issued from its rack and slapped it onto his back, grabbing his helmet and transferring the image of the woman to it quickly.

He didn't wait around to hear the Cryptarch's protests, there was no time.

"Ghost, find me the location of that AI," he said flatly.

The small, mechanical object appeared next to him in a flash of light, already beeping and searching for the data he had requested.

"Rasputin's core is contained in a bunker in old Russia, not far from the cosmodrome. Another Guardian was able to enter it a few months ago to halt hive activity, but no Guardian has entered before or sense."

"I'm getting in there," he said flatly, "I don't care what I have to do."

The Ghost whirled and clicked, drooping slightly in exasperation.

"Why do I have a feeling you're going to get me killed one day?"

* * *

As he strode off to the hangar, the Ghost filled Mark in on all the details of a warmind's functions. It was built by a military coalition before the collapse to help fight the approaching darkness, and was linked into a network of orbital weapons systems and naval ships. It was the last defense of a the Golden Age military, and contained all of their surviving records.

Hopefully it would be able to help him find her.

As he entered the tower's hangar, a cavernous area littered with jumpships in in various degrees of disrepair, he noticed three people standing directly in front of his own ship, one of which was Commander Zavala.

He didn't recognize the other two.

One of the two Guardians was a Hunter. She was young, and Asian with tan skin and black hair, dressed in light armor painted the same camouflage pattern as his own.

The man standing next to her was a Warlock. His armor was painted a bright red and gold. He had several subtle scars on his lower jaw, obscured by five o'clock shadow, and short cropped hair not unlike his own.

What really caught his attention, however, was that unlike the other Guardians he had seen so far, both of them had symbols on their chest plates that were vaguely similar to his.

The Hunter's symbol was a blue shield emblazoned with a half-man-half-horse sort of figure holding a red sword. A crescent moon sat in the upper right hand corner and a banner underneath that read Nightstalker. A set of wings sat to the right of the symbol. Perhaps she was a pilot?

The Warlock wore another symbol, this one the same red and gold color as his armor. It was an eagle clutching onto a globe, with an anchor hanging beneath it. A large inscription on his chest read Marines.

The Commander noticed him approaching and turned to face him.

"Off to somewhere Guardian?" He asked.

Mark nodded and brought up the image of the woman on his wrist gauntlet, showing it to Zavala.

"Who's this?" He asked, examining the photo.

"I don't know, but I have to find her. I found the picture in my armor. I knew her, I think."

Mark realized he must have sounded like a madman, going out into the world and possibly to his death because of a picture he had found and a flimsy hunch, but Zavala didn't seem to bothered.

"You're starting to sound like the Speaker, Guardian," he said dryly, "well, at least you won't be going alone."

Zavala gestured to the two Guardians that were flanking him.

"This is your new fire team. I put them together for the purpose of your mission."

Mark looked them over.

The Hunter with the Nightstalker emblem was the first to step forward, smiling at him.

"Hey, I'm Li Dawson," said the hunter warmly, offering her hand to shake, "I'll be the fireteam's pilot. Don't worry, I've never crashed a jumpship badly enough to kill all my passengers."

The slightly sadistic smile on her face didn't put Mark at ease at all, but at least she was joking, or so he thought. Mark shook her hand and nodded.

The Warlock, however, was significantly less warm. He had his hands folded over his chest, a critical frown on his face, and didn't make any attempt at all to shake his hand.

"Derrick Vaughn," he said bluntly, "and It's not you I'm worried about Li."

He jabbed a finger at Mark's chest.

"You have no business accompanying us on a combat op. How long have you been in the field? Ten, fifteen minutes? You don't know a thing about operating out there."

Mark locked his eyes on his, narrowing them slightly. He had a bad feeling that the two of them were going to have a hard time getting along.

Mark jabbed a finger at the symbol on the other Guardian's chest plate, and then back to his.

"Looks like at some point in our lives we both had a bit of experience in the field," he said challengingly.

The other Guardian didn't even flinch and just kept right on laughing.

"Hopefully your living in the past doesn't get us killed," he shot back.

Mark leaned forward, infuriated by the comment, but commander Zavala came between them, blocking the two from coming to blows.

"Guardians," he said forcefully, "I have no idea what has gotten into you. You're soldiers of the light. Start acting like it," he snapped.

Mark remained tensed for a few more moments, then nodded and relaxed a bit as his adrenaline wore off and he realized what he had been about to do and who he was going to do it to. This man was a member of his team now, like it or not. No sense in attacking him.

Derrick didn't seem to relax much at all, but back off just enough to satisfy Zavala, still snarling and locking his eyes with Mark.

"Now," continued the Commander, "you will begin your mission effective immediately. Find that woman by decree of the Traveler's light. Dismissed."

The Commander strode off, leaving the other three guardians in silence.

Li, who had been standing there silently the whole time, laughed and headed for the waiting jumpship ahead of the other two.

"I take that back. Maybe I will crash the jumpship and save you two the trouble of killing each other."

Mark looked from her back to Derrick, who said nothing before following her to the ship, not even meeting his gaze.

In a way, he understood his frustration. He barely knew these two, and he was about to go into combat with him. The distrust was understandable.

Still, none of them was going to fair well if they didn't learn to understand each other quickly.

* * *

AN: So what did y'all think? More action in the next chapter I promise.

Until next time Gaurdians.


	4. Chapter 3: good to see you my old friend

**AN: Well here it is Guardians, chapter 3.**

 **Despite all the many reasons you may be reading this story I think this story, I think this chapter should more or less have something for everyone.**

 **One more thing before you go Guardians. I'd like to clear up some very minor confusion I may have caused in the last chapter. Li's "Nightstalker" emblem doesn't actually mean she uses the Nightstalker sub class. It's actually the symbol of an elite unit of US Army rotary wing aviators and crewman from before the Colapse (also known as today).**

 **Anyway, enough with me. On to the story.**

* * *

The ride to earth was nearly completely silent.

Derrick sat across from Mark, inspecting his weapon and readying for the coming fight, while Mark simply sat and tried to figure him out.

Clearly he was upset by something other than Mark's lack of experience, no one would get this angry over something so simple, but when he had tried to ask what exactly it was that had upset him he had been blown off and left in the dark once again.

He sighed and walked to the ship's cockpit. This was getting him no where. Maybe Li would be more willing to talk.

He entered the cockpit and found Li seated in the pilot's seat, manipulating the controls while her Ghost monitored other systems.

Miraculously, over all the engine noise generated by the ship, she was still able to hear him enter and spun around to face him.

"Hey Li, can we talk?" He asked simply.

She nodded, her face locked in a small half smile.

"Ghost, take over," she said, disengaging her restraint harness and stepping out of the pilot's chair.

"What's on your mind?" She asked, her Ghost now flying the ship.

Mark but his lip slightly, fearing the question he was about to ask may be a bit touchy.

"Nothing," he said, "Look, I don't know if it's any of my business, but what has Derrick got against me?"

Li quickly shrugged dismissively, casting her eyes towards the ground.

"He just doesn't think you're experienced enough, that's all."

Mark could tell she wasn't giving him the whole truth. Despite the slight smile she kept on her face, he could still notice the hesitation she had had before responding, a little bit of the same haunted look he had seen in Derrick's eyes showing through in hers.

Mark frowned and sighed. This might be a bit more difficult than he expected.

"Alright, I know I've probably just broke into a unit I had no business entering this quickly, and I'm sorry," he said apologetically, "but I'm with you now and if we're going to be fighting together we might as well understand each other."

His cutting response caught Li off guard. She clearly had expected him to back off, and the glare she shot him reinforced that guess, but he simply leaned against the cockpit's door frame, folding his arms and making it very clear that he was going nowhere.

Li relented, sitting down on a box and leaning against a nearby bulkhead and locking her eyes on his.

"Actually, you didn't break into anything. Guardians always operate in units of three, so we were down one when you joined anyway."

She reached into one of her armor's pockets and pulled out a dog tag like his secured to a metal chain, rubbing her thumb over it pensively.

"We had another Guardian in our fireteam before you. Sweet girl, by the name of Jennifer. She had been with us a long time, until we ran into a group of Hive thrall on the moon unlike anything you've ever seen. there was a hundred of them at least. She chose the wrong time to reload and got swarmed. The damn things tore her to ribbons and killed her Ghost, no chance of a revival."

She paused for a moment, seeming unable to continue.

"Hey, I'm sorry," said Mark apologetically, "you can stop of you want to."

Li shook her head dismissively, although the pain in her eyes didn't leave.

"You asked, you get an answer," she said simply, "anyway, Derrick and her were close. I don't know how close, I stayed out of it, but she died in his arms. I practically had to carry him back to the ship he was so devastated. He didn't speak for two days afterwards, and that was only three weeks ago."

Her breath caught in her throat, but she covered it up, placing the dogtag back in her pocket and resuming control of the ship.

"Anyways, he might be a pain, but go easy on him. He's been through a lot and just doesn't want to see you killed."

Mark hesitated for a moment, and then nodded, Turning to leave but stoping before he could.

"I'm sorry," he said simply, not really sure how to express sympathy to someone who had gone through something like that.

Li smiled and nodded her thanks, although it didn't seem very genuine.

"Appreciate it," she said simply, "now let's get set for a combat drop."

She toggled several controls on the ship's main control panel before releasing the yoke and grabbing her side arm and shotgun, which were stored in a nearby rack, and following him to the rear of the ship.

Derrick was already prepping for a hot drop in the troop bay, his sniper rifle cradled in his arms and a shotgun strapped to his back, standing and staring calmly at the back of the jumpship.

Li and Mark took their places next to him and and readied their weapons in a similar manner.

"Guardians, please be advised, we are approaching the drop zone. Stand by to transmat in 60 seconds," said Li's Ghost over the ship's intercom.

Mark took a deep breath and waited for what seemed like an hour for the tingling feeling of the ship's transmat system kicking in and then the abrupt and solid feeling of his boots on the muddy ground of old Russia's forgotten shores.

He took a second to survey where he was before moving.

He was in the middle of a small canyon with one side open to the ocean. Hulks of rusted boats of all shapes and sizes sat around him, some destroyed almost beyond recognition. An odd building on a hill sat about 2000 yards in front of them, rusted, decayed, and barely standing on its shaky foundation.

A waypoint from his Ghost appeared over the building on his HUD. That was his target.

He dropped low and ran for a nearby rock, taking cover behind it along with Li and Derrick.

A group of nearby Fallen had already spotted them. The sheer number of Fallen in the cosmodrome made that inevitable.

The Fallen were positioned in a nearby boat. The ones on the lower deck ran for cover behind various bits of old metal and machinery while the ones on the top deck began to rain fire down upon them, yelling as loudly as they could and letting out their strange, screeching howls to attract more Fallen to their position.

The Guardians responded swiftly and with force.

Li and Mark laid down suppressing fire while Derrick brought his sniper rifle to bare on the Fallen, snapping off shots quickly and causing a number to retreat as four them fell with ease under his shots.

"Go," he said to Li and Mark, "I'll cover you're advance."

Mark nodded and motioned for Li to move up to a nearby boat, spraying the Fallen wildly with rounds as she advanced.

When she reached her target he dropped and headed for her position while she did the same for him, keeping the Fallen at bay. Derrick followed last, and by time they had all reached the boat the Fallen had either retreated or were out of range.

The three Guardians regrouped and reloaded, taking a moment to pause before readying themselves to sprint to the bunker.

Mark took point with Li and Derrick behind him. Li drew the powerful, solar energy infused revolver that the Hunters referred to as a golden gun, and the three took off, moving from cover to cover quickly.

Li snapped off three quick shots from her golden gun, impacting three groups of fallen and detonating them with the explosive power of a small hand grenade and giving the Guardians enough cover to get out of the open and too the bunker without too much resistance

They reached the building and stacked up on the door, checking their corners as they moved through the decrepit building, descending a staircase into its lower levels.

Luckily, no fallen or hive had taken up residence in the building recently, and they were able to reach the ground floor fairly easily.

What they found down their, however, was in stark contrast to the rest of the building.

A large, hexagonal door that looked as clean as any you find in the last city jutted through one of the walls, a small keypad that sat next to it looking just as out of place as the door.

Derrick and Li covered the staircase as Mark moved to the keypad, setting his ghost on it to see if it could crack the door electronically.

The Ghost fought with the electronics systems for a few minutes before stopping and retreating back.

"Sorry Guardian," it said, "Rasputin's encryption is too difficult to crack, even for me."

Mark nodded and walked up to the keypad, thinking for some reason that maybe he could crack it manually.

He pulled off his helmet, setting it on a nearby table before returning to work on it, but before he could even touch the keypad its screen lit up and a message began to scroll across it.

 _Facial recognition match. Welcome Staff Sergeant Mark Kelly. Please watch your step as you enter._

And just like that, the seal on the nearby door broke and it slid open, allowing him access.

He motioned for Li and Derrick to follow him in as he advanced carefully through the door.

Once they were through it sealed behind them, much to the chagrin of Derrick.

"You better know what you're doing," he spat, "I don't want to be trapped in here."

Mark nodded, remembering what Li had said, and continued down the hallway.

The bunker was a winding maze of hallways lined with server stacks and displays. Rasputin lit a path along the hallway that the Guardians followed toward wherever he was taking them.

The path ended in a large, open room. Hive corpses lay all around it, heavily decomposed, even more so than usual.

This must have been the sight of the previous Guardian's confrontation with the hive.

Derrick looked none to happy at the sight, but for the most part said nothing as they crossed the room to a raised platform with a bank of computer monitors that displayed various Intel on all of the Darkness's four factions.

As Mark approached one of the screens to interact with it, a voice boomed over the speakers in Russian, causing him to stop dead in his tracks.

"Welcome staff sergeant Kelly," his Ghost translated, "it has been a long time since your last visit. I was beginning to think you weren't coming back."

Mark looked to Li and Derrick for advice on what to do, who stared back at him with just as much confusion.

He had been here before, however, so he was on the right track.

"Rasputin," he said confidently.

If the AI saw nothing wrong with a dead man walking the halls of its bunker, than he should act as though nothing was wrong in turn.

Another response in Russian echoed through the room.

"State your query," translated the ghost."

Mark pulled up the picture of the red headed woman and displayed it on his wrist gauntlet, showing it to a nearby security camera.

"Tell me everything you know about this woman."

There was a long silence, and then the bank of monitors in from of him lit up.

They showed another picture of her, and a description which read, _Amanda, [Redacted], Petty Officer Second Class, US Navy, TECHINT specialist for Operation: BROKENHEARTED._

Memories flashed through his head, even at the small new burst of information. Most were blurry and rather nondescript memories of her, nothing like when he had seen that picture, but as he said her name quietly to himself he found it rolled off his tongue quite nicely.

If only her last name was still on file.

He decided to try a couple more queries.

"Rasputin, what was Operation: BROKENHEARTED?"

Another pause, then a burst of Russian.

"Redacted," translated his Ghost.

He cursed quietly.

The name sounded vaguely familiar, but it was probably just an ancient military operation that mattered little now. Whatever its objective had been, it had probably failed.

"What was I doing last time I was here?" He tried.

The pause was much less quick this time.

A video appeared on the console before him showing a group of soldiers of various nationalities standing around a piece of technology that sat where they were currently standing.

The device was made of various sizes rectangles made of an oddly color metal, lights and energy emanating from every side of it.

Li and Derrick looked over his shoulder at the video, examining it.

"That looks like Vex technology," said Li, pointing at the device.

"Vex?" Asked Mark.

"Time traveling robots, not to be fucked with," cut in Derrick.

Mark nodded and continued to watch the video.

It was grainy and had no sound, but he could barely make out himself standing at the head of the group of soldiers, issuing orders to all of them, and behind him was the woman, examining the device with a tablet computer.

He tried to focus the video to get a better view of what she was doing, but it was no use. It was to pixelated to make out anything of importance.

After a moment he yelled something, no doubt words of encouragement, and watched as the soldiers pumped their fists into the air and cheered, filing out of the room with a new found enthusiasm, leaving just he and the woman behind.

He approached her slowly, and for a moment they simply stared at each other, neither saying a word or moving at all, until the woman through her arms around his neck in a tight embrace that he returned, pulling her close to his armored form.

Memories flooded back to him like a broken dam. He remembered that sort of thing being a fairly regular occurrence between the two of them, and it had felt good, like a thousand pound weight being lifted from his chest each time.

They stayed like that for a good long while, before he released her and kissed her deeply, not seeming to care one way or the other if anyone saw them.

That too, triggered a flood of memories, the one of her in the white dress coming to mind immediately, and then fading all too quickly. He fought to hold onto them, but couldn't. For the moment, they were too far gone.

When they broke he retreated back from her slightly. She said something to him, maybe goodbye, before he too said a quick sentence and left.

A moment latter a team of engineers arrived with a forklift to move the device, but the woman didn't move.

She stared at the spot he had once occupied for several minutes before moving to help the engineers.

He wanted to watch her for longer, but the feed abruptly cut to him and the soldiers, now escorting a tank column towards the wall around the cosmodrome.

They were joined by a much larger group of soldiers, and even some armed civilians, that took up positions around the wall to defend the colony ships contained within.

He could see some of them taking off in the distance as the defenders set themselves up at the perimeter.

Mark moved through the wall to its outer gate where lines of angry civilians were still parked in their cars, trying desperately to get in and get onto one of the colony ships while soldiers tried to control the tide of refugees and make way for the defenders.

As the camera panned out Mark quickly realized what they were trying escape. At the other end of the queue of cars was a surge of Fallen, firing indiscriminately into the crowds of people trying to escape.

As the people tried to push forward to escape they shouted angrily at the soldiers, who themselves didn't look to happy to be left behind like they had been, but it wasn't like they could have left anyway.

The ships were already loaded, and even if they weren't there never would have been enough room for all of these people. The though of them being trapped here, however, made him nauseous, even though he knew their had been no way to save them.

Mark's troops assisted the soldiers in pushing the crowd back to allow the tank column to position itself along the outside of the wall, and immediately the tide of refugees resumed.

The moment they were in position the tanks started firing on the Fallen, main guns thundering as they launched high velocity shells at them and tried, futilely, to keep them off of the civilians.

The Fallen quickly recognized the new threat, and dealt with it.

A squad of the support aircraft the Fallen called skiffs flew in low and began to fire bursts of energy at the tanks and soldiers, destroying most of them with only a few rounds.

The tanks that did survive scattered along with the civilians, wildly traversing and firing until they were ultimately destroyed, crushing the last hopes of the defenders.

A group of the remaining soldiers, including himself, still stood near the fortified wall, slowly being picked off by the hail of energy being projected at them by the fallen.

Eventually one of the Fallen's six legged tanks traversed it's gun towards them and fired a single shell, eliminating most of the defenders.

The camera zoomed in on him.

He had been throw ten feet back by the blast, but had miraculously survived, and took cover near a pile of destroyed cars, angrily and uselessly firing his rifle at the horde of fallen.

When his weapon ran dry he seemed to just give up, and knelt down to a dead soldier next to him, taking their dog tags into his hand and screaming aloud in agony.

An instant latter a stray round unceremoniously tore through him, dropping him and leaving him dead on the ground, right where his ghost would find him many years latter.

It was eerie and sickening to see his own corpse on camera. He had know he had died even before he came back to life, so he had no idea why it had such an effect on him. Something about seeing it with his own two eyes was entirely new and terrible.

He felt hollow and nauseous, like a corpse running on autopilot with no soul left to guide it. He almost couldn't watch any more, but he forced himself to.

The camera snapped to a feed of colony ships taking off, only a few being downed by the Fallen thanks to the defenders, and then to another camera inside the crew compartment of one of the ships.

The woman he sought, Amanda, was strapped into a crash seat, tears streaming down her face silently. As soon as the ship entered orbit, however, a pair of engineers came and began to escort crew members to nearby cryogenic chambers and seal them inside.

He watched as she begrudgingly allowed herself to be led to one of these chambers and be sealed inside.

The video then cut off.

Mark paused for a moment, staring at the blank screen

That was why the two of them had said such a heartfelt goodbye. They had both known one or both of them were going to die in the next few hours.

He had to know where she had gone. The more he saw her in pain the more he knew he had to find her.

"Rasputin, where was her ship heading?" He queried.

Another burst of Russian came from the console's speaker.

"Redacted," translated his Ghost.

Mark was crushed.

His sense of urgency was building by the second. He needed to find her, and clearly this computer just didn't understand.

He raised his fist to strike the console, but his ghost caught his hand mid swing with a beam of energy.

"Mark, stop!" It warned.

His fist was charged with the deadly electrify that he was so death afraid of, and immediately he dropped his hand, feeling it shake slightly as it returned to his side.

He needed to calm down, or he was going to kill someone or break something he couldn't replace, his own volatility frightening him once again.

He took a moment to recover, then looked back to the other two Guardians.

His eyes immediately met Derrick's, who was dead silent, his expression extremely pained.

Mark could tell he too was thinking about the one he had lost.

He stood there for a moment longer, his mouth closed tight before finally sighing and breaking his gaze from Mark's.

"I am so sorry," he said after a moment.

Mark nodded, unsure of what to say. Derrick was angry, and rightfully so, but hopefully he understood Mark a little better now.

Li slowly approached him and placed a caring hand on his shoulder.

"Hey," she said, her voice raised only slightly, "are you going to be ok?"

Her concern seemed much more genuine this time, her indifferent personality dropped for the moment.

He nodded, but honestly he wasn't sure how he felt. Seeing that woman, even for a brief moment, had made him feel just a little bit more relaxed, and now he knew they had been close, but it didn't bring him any closer to getting the weight of needing to find her off his chest.

She removed her hand smiled.

"I've seen the Traveler do some crazy shit Mark," she said, her tone confident, "if it wants you to find her then we'll find her, and she'll be fine, I'm sure of it."

Mark nodded his thanks. This new group he had was already starting to feel like a team, something his memory of the past told him was a very good thing.

Li removed her hand and he turned back to the console and found his Ghost still floating near it, examining a piece of the footage he hadn't spent much on, the Vex device.

"What have you got Ghost?" He asked, watching as it repeatedly zoomed and enhanced the image.

It seemed to be analyzing even the smallest most pixilated details of the device that Mark could hardly even recognize as anything other than groups of pixels on a screen much less advanced alien technology, but then again he had no idea just how advanced a Ghost's powers of analysis were.

He decided, given everything he had seen today, that they were probably much greater than his own.

"Nothing, it's just that this device is very interesting," said the Ghost, scanning over the minutiae of the screen once again, "I haven't seen anything like it used by the Vex before, and I have no idea why it would have been here before the collapse."

The Ghost quickly downloaded the footage and moved away from the console and transmated back into Mark's armor.

"I recommend we take this footage to the Awoken for analysis."

Mark looked blankly at the other two Guardians for a moment, before asking the obvious question.

"Awoken?" He asked.

Li and Derrick laughed slightly, finding some amusement in his lack of familiarity with his new world, but he found nothing funny about it.

His lack of knowledge of his surroundings made him concerned. He was fighting largely unknown enemies for the first time and acting on nothing buts instinct. Without anything else to go on he would be fighting blind, and that could easily get him killed.

"The Awoken are a race of former humans that live in a floating scrap called the Reef," said Li, "They know more about the Vex than anyone in the Tower."

She cracked a sly smile.

"They're also matriarchal, so I'm kind of a big deal there."

That earned a slight smile from Mark.

"Will they help us?" he asked.

Even as concerned as he was of not knowing who they were, he was even more concerned that they would know something that could help him find Amanda and withhold it.

"Hard to say," she continued, "they have in the past, but they're tricky. They don't do anything for free."

Mark frowned. He didn't need anyone getting in his way now because they wanted petty payment.

It was irrelevant though. He was going to find Amanda, and if these Awoken got in his way he would convince them to get out of it one way or another.

Mark quickly locked for transmat to the jumpship, not wanting to waste any time.

He turned to the other two Guardians and smiled slightly.

He knew why he cared for this woman now. He had a lead and the faintest grasp of why he had to find her.

Now it was time to start looking.

* * *

 **AN: if you have any thoughts, especially about the battle scene(I don't write as many of them as I'd like to) feel free to share them.**

 **If not, I'll(hopefully) see you next week Guardians.**


	5. Chapter 4: Some times I feel

**AN: Hey Gaurdians, welcome back. Remember when I said this wasn't gonna take very long?**

 **XD**

 **Anyway, I'm sorry for the delay. I had a serious loss of confidence in this story about midway through writing this chapter, and basically forgot about for a good, long time. I'll have you know though that this story is back up and running, so stay tuned for more updates on a better timetable.**

 **Anyway, enjoy :)**

* * *

None of the Guardians had much experience with the Awoken Monarchy, or the Reef. However, after being their only a short time, all of them couldn't wait to leave.

Quickly after they arrived, their weapons had been confiscated. Derrick and Mark had been left in a small room while they waited for an audience with the Awoken's Queen, while Li had been sent to talk to an Awoken emissary. Due to the Reef's matriarchal nature, they had figured it would be better if she did the talking. This had left Derrick and Mark to revel in their foreign surroundings.

It didn't take them long to realize that Li had been right about the Reef. It really was a floating scrap heap.

The room they stood in was made out of a modular section of an old Fallen ship, gutted and littered with live, dangling wires and rusted surfaces. There were few portholes, and just beyond the room's one and only blast door with a huge open hanger, protected only by a hastily constructed entry barrier. Some sections of this place had little more than lightly welded sheet metal between its occupants and the vacuum of space, making Mark rather uneasy.

And from what he had seen, it was one of nicer places on the Reef.

It also didn't help the he had been left with a seemingly endless amount of time to wait while the Awoken Debated what to do with their plea for help, and since they had arrived he had already wasted all the time he could checking, rechecking, and re-rechecking his gear for battle damage.

Even though he tried his hardest to distract himself, he found it hard to stop his mind from wandering to thoughts of the life he had lead before, and eventually he gave up trying. He had downloaded all of the footage Rasputin had shown him and was now playing it on a continuous loop on the small screen of a tablet. He hadn't been playing the footage of the battle, or the device, or his dath, he remembered all too much about those parts of his life. What he was most interested in seeing over and over and over was still Amanda.

The image of their embrace still haunted him. When he saw it now the same flashbacks he had had before raced through his mind like a wild fire. The short memory of her in a white dress made his heart race. That memory was certainly important. The joy that built up inside of him, even upon thinking about it was almost enough to take his mind off of the rest of the world he had woken into.

The other memory that he couldn't get out of his head was one of her crying on his shoulder. It was much more specific and detailed than the other memory. He could still feel Amanda's fingers dug into his back and her thin arms locked around him as tightly as she could manage, his collar bone wet where her tears were collecting.

The memory made him nauseous with grief for her. He wanted anything but for her to feel this way, but trying to forget the memory seemed wrong. She had trusted him to see her in that state, and trying to shut out this memory now would break that sacred trust.

"Hey, Mark," said Derrick from behind him suddenly.

His words startled him from his trance like state and caused him to jump. It almost felt as though just by talking Derrick had pulled him out of the past and into the future. Derrick didn't seem to notice his plight, however. The Warlock rubbed his neck with his hand and cast his eyes towards the rusted deck of the station, looking a little embarrassed.

"We got off on the wrong foot," he continued.

He looked genuinely apologetic. His stern expression had been dropped and the sorrow of their shared experiences clearly shown through in his features.

"It's not an issue," said Mark, knowing full well that Derrick hadn't acted the way he had for no reason.

Derrick, however, didn't seem so reassured. He cast his eyes towards the ground like he was remembering something in the distant past, and then snapped them back up to meet Mark's gaze.

"Yes, it is," he shot back, "I hardly even knew you and I was already at your throat."

He sat down on a crate next to Mark and let out a long sigh.

"Look, you're my teammate, and there no excuse for that kind of behavior, but it wasn't personal. I've lost some important people during my time as a Guardian, I just didn't want you to come out here with no experience and wind up on that list."

He then glanced down at Mark's tablet, and the recording he was watching. He once again cast his eyes towards the ground, and for a moment, squeezed them shut tightly.

"But I guess we've both lost people," he said evenly, "and for what it's worth, I'm sorry."

Mark nodded at Derrick's acceptance. He'd rather not have had this be the common ground between them, but for the time being it would work.

When Mark glanced over at Derrick once again, he was met by an odd, sideways grin.

"So, lighten up, will ya? We'll find her, don't you worry."

Mark dropped his glare and smiled, throwing a glance over to the edge of the room where he noticed Li leaning against a door frame, smiling at the two of them. She must have finished her meeting with the Awoken ambassador, and she was clearly all too please with the Awoken's royal treatment of her.

"If you too are about finished, the Awoken say they're ready to make their decision," she said sarcastically before turning and walking out the door.

Derrick rolled his eyes and Mark laughed softly as they headed for the door as well. They were stopped immediately by a group of four Awoken guards that surrounded them on all sides, hands on their sidearms as they gave them both piercing glares. The Guardians stayed on edge as the silent, armed guards lead them to the Queen's throne room.

The room was large and open, with a small walkway that lead to the center where the Queen resided on her throne, flanked by two Fallen guards with staffs. The rear a of her throne room was encased in glass, and almost looked open to the void of space. The dangling writes, malfunctioning robots, and and poorly placed and cheaply welded bulkheads seemed to have been cleaned up a little, but still it seem that wealth and luxury afforded the Queen no more safety from the blackness of space than any of her subjects.

The Queen herself, an azure skinned Awoken with yellow-blonde hair sat in comfortable looking clothes one would expect to find on a scavenger, but her regal posture and intense gaze made it no secret that she was in charge. Pacing next to her was black haired male Awoken who held a combat knife in each hand and was glaring intently at the Guardians. He seemed to be sizing up each one of them as potential targets, and deciding how best to deliver the killing blow to each of them. He had clearly already made up his mind about them.

The three of them slowly walked down the thin and rusted walkway that lead to the Queen's throne until they were a few feet from her. They knelt down on one knee, looking at the ground in front of them respectfully.

Slowly but surely, the Awoken male approached the three Guardians, flipping his combat knives end over end in his hands in a threatening manner.

"Ah, more Guardians," he scoffed, "what have you come to beg for this time?"

He dragged the tip of his knife over one of Mark's pauldrons making a sharp, scraping noise. Mark had to fight the urge to wrench the knife from his hand and break it, and the Awoken's amazed smile did not help his restraint one bit. Mark glanced over to Derrick, who reflexively reached for his handgun. He scowled when his fingers found nothing.

Li, however, didn't seem fazed at all, not that she ever usually did.

"Your grace," she began cooly, "We are here to ask for your help. We have found a piece of Vex technology that we believe only you could identify."

The Queen remained silent, and did nothing but throw a sideways glance at the Awoken that paced in front of them.

"Show us," he commanded.

Mark stood up from his kneeling state, the rifles the Queen's guard held tracking him all the way as he pulled a datapad from his armor's hip pocket, projecting a hologram of the device into the middle of the room.

"This is it your grace," said Li.

The Awoken guards slowly lowered their weapons as Mark knelt back down and the knife wielding Awoken began to examine hologram, walking through it and picking it apart piece by piece. He seemed almost amused, but then again he really didn't seem to be studying it at all. He was toying with them and waiting to present his forgone conclusions, that much was clear. Mark just hoped that they could escape alive after he presented them.

When he was finished, he walked away from the hologram, laughing hysterically.

"You think that that is Vex technology?" Said the Awoken, casting a finger in the direction of the hologram.

He walked back to the hologram pointing out various parts of it that he apparently fond to be out of place.

"This is nothing but a pile of parts slapped together by humans," he said before spinning around to face the Queen, looking her in the eye

Mark's senses heightened as he began to sense the threat on the man's tongue. He quickly tired to determine the quickest exit route, but escape would be next to impossible from this floating fortress, even without the two dozen plus rifles currently pointed at him. If they made it out of here at all, it would be a messy run for it.

"Sister this must be some kind of trick," the Awoken man continued, "Even the Guardians aren't this stupid."

Upon hearing the word trick, the Guards that surrounded the three Guardians brought their weapons to bare. One jabbed the barrel of her weapon into Mark's neck, nearly throwing him into full combat mode.

Mark wasn't about to put up with any more of this. He readied his fist of havoc, lightning already coursing through it as he prepared to slam it into the guard behind him, but before he could the Queen made a single, sweeping gesture with her hand, causing the guards to instantly lower their weapons and bow as well.

Her Brother seemed ready to protest, but the glare she shot him and the raw power she emanated caused even him to obey her command, and he too bowed before her. The Queen stepped out of her metal throne and approached the three Guardians, looking them up and down like she was inspecting a new section of hull. Anyone who wasn't intimidated by the piercing gaze she gave them was either crazy or dead.

"Rise, Warriors of the Light," she said calmly.

Mark swore he heard a noticeably displeased grunt from her Brother, but he ignored it and stood all the same, staring straight ahead of him. All three of them expected the Queen to approach Li, but to their surprise she seemed to face each one of them as equals.

"What my Brother says is true. This device is not of Vex origin. Where did you find it?"

"We found an image of it in a bunker in the Cosmodrome. We think it's connected to someone he needs to find," said Li, gesturing to Mark with a nod of her head.

The Queen nodded and walked over to Mark, looking him dead in the eye as he stared forward.

"And who is it that you seek Titan?" She inquired.

The Queen's gaze was intimidating to say the least. She commanded respect, and she didn't look like she would tolerate trivial requests. Considering Mark didn't even know who he was looking for, she hoped she would tolerate his.

"I," began Mark, stumbling slightly, "I'm not sure. I'm looking for a woman stationed on a colony ship before the collapse. This device was on the ship with her."

Mark heard her Brother laugh quietly. No doubt he found Mark's mission to be completely ridiculous. The Queen, however, was not so amused. She spun silently on the balls of her feet to face him and glared at his back. Even though Mark was certain there was no way he could see her, his laughing stopped the moment her eyes fell on him.

She held her gaze for an intense moment before she spun away and approached the hologram. She gazed at it intently, her eyes showing just how much knowledge of technology she had. A Cyrptark attempted to approach and offer assistance, but she declined with the flick of a hand. Mark guessed that that must be a basic requirement of living on the Reef, given how easily the place appeared to break down. Maybe her technological prowess had even been what had caused her to be crowned ruler. By time she was done examining it however, Mark knew that the intensity of this woman's gaze alone would have easily been enough to install her as ruler.

The Queen returned to her chair nonchalantly after her inspection, now bringing her attention back to the Guardians.

"This device was built by human hands," said the Queen, gesturing to various pieces of it, "most of this is just pieces of scrap metal, torn from Vex chassis. The only piece I recognize is this."

Her hand fell on a piece in the shape of an orb that protruded from the side of the device. It glowed red and looked almost like a mechanical eye.

"The eye of a Vex gate lord. It can be used to enter the center of the Vex's strength, the Black Garden on Mars. What ever this device was built for, its creators wanted it out there. They would not have risked so much to retrieve that eye otherwise."

The Queen gestured for her servants and guards to rise.

"Another Guardian assaulted the black Garden a few months ago as I recall," stated the Queen, "Return to Mars near its entrance, and you will find what up you seek."

The Queen smiled at the three of them and then made a sweeping gesture with her hand over the three of them.

"Go in peace Guardians."

And so they did.

They returned to their ship under the Guard of the Awoken and all collectively flopped down into chairs its troop bay, each one of them exhausted from tension of having weapons trained on them for hours on end without any way to defend themselves.

Derrick looked at Mark worriedly.

"You sure about this Mark? The Black Garden is a helluva place, even though the Heart of it was destroyed. The Vex have portals that lead there from every part of space and time. We'd be facing down a lot of them if we entered."

Mark thought for only a moment before nodding.

He'd seen a lot of stuff since he woke up that his mind could barely rationalize, let alone process. Whatever this Black Garden was, there was no way it could be any more dangerous or confusing than what he had already seen.

"I'll plot a course," said Li as she walked to the cockpit.

Derrick moved to the edge of the troop bay, leaned back against the bulkhead, and closed his eyes, seeming to drift off to sleep almost instantly.

Mark did the same. His adrenaline was still pounding from watching the Queen's guards come within inches of killing them. He hoped that he could catch a few moments of rest without tension or violence or visions of his life before the collapse, but as his eyes closed he found they came anyway. Most of them were still about war. Battles, explosions, running, tripping, falling, shooting, dying, they all seemed to blur together into one big memory. He could hardly tell what he was fighting. Maybe it was Fallen, maybe it was other humans, he wasn't sure. All he knew was that it made sleeping impossible.

He tried to recall more pleasant memories. Maybe he could catch a memory of Amanda and follow it to learn more about her. Maybe, just maybe, if he tried and enough he could speak to her, learn why he needed her so badly, but it wasn't long before he dropped these wild fantasies and gave up trying to sleep.

Even if he could drift off, he wouldn't wake feeling rested. He'd only feel like he'd been through yet another battle, and as far as his mind was concerned, he had. So he sat awake with his eyes open and his helmet on against the bulkhead, hoping that he would find a way to sleep peacefully latter.

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 **Thanks to Jaeger Jypsy Danger for kicking this story back into action :)**

 **See you in the next update Gaurdians.**


	6. Chapter 5: As cold as steel

**Another chapter. Man these are taking way to long.**

 **What really kicked me in to action to write this chapter was listening to Paul Mcartney's "Hope for the Future" which was written for Destiny. I absolutely love that song. It gets me every time, almost as bad as "Finish the Fight" from Halo 3(game soundtracks are super powerful). I guess you can officially declare that these two's ship song XD**

 **Anyway, hope this was worth the wait Gaurdians :)**

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It was a long flight to Mars, and an even longer wait while Li used their ship's geospatial scanners to scan the area around the Black Garden for any indication a Colony Ship had landed near there.

After sifting through a landscape dotted by Vex constructs and Cabal fortifications, the scan finally came up positive in an area a few kilometers west of the Black Garden's entrance. The image of a Colony Ship's crash site was grainy, and to the Guardians it looked rather nondescript, but Li's ghost was positive that the image they were looking at was of a crashed starship.

Without hesitation the Guardians transmated to the surface and mounted their sparrows, dashing off over the dusty fields of Mars towards their destination.

When they rounded the final dune and the crash sight came into view, however, their plans changed.

None of them expected to find the ship half sunken in sand with only the rusted and wilting rocket exhausts poking out from under the dunes. To add insult to injury, it was being assaulted by the cabal on all sides with Hive streaming out like a river of decay from inside the ship, determined to push the Cabal back.

The three Guardians immediately stopped, dismounted their sparrows, and laid down on a ridge overlooking the scene. Derrick pulled out his sniper rifle and began to scan the area while the other two Guardians watched the Cabal fire slug after slug of explosive rounds at a seemingly endless stream of energy firing Hive monstrosities.

"Well this couldn't possibly get any worse," deadpanned Li.

Derrick grumbled in agreement as he continued to scan the battlefield.

"The hell are the hive doing on Here?" He questioned, resisting the urge to take shots at the group of enemies laid before him like fish in a barrel.

"Are they not usually on Mars?" Asked Mark, more or less oblivious to any knowledge of how the planet was supposed to look.

Li laughed in amusement before sliding to the reverse slope of the hill and beginning to check her weapon and ready herself.

"Nah, the Hive usually stay the hell outta here," said Derrick, "They only really seem concerned about Earth and the Moon these days. You think they're here for the same reason as us?"

Mark looked back to the battle. He noted the way the Hive fought desperately to defend the doomed ship while the Cabal struggled to push them out, and nodded.

"I think it's better we work under that assumption regardless."

Li laughed and jumped to her feet, already moving towards the battle.

"Then let's not waste time," she said cheerily, "give us some support buddy," she said, tapping Derrick on the shoulder.

He nodded, and Mark took off after her.

Mark and Li took cover behind a low rock about a hundred yards in front of Derrick, pausing for only a moment before they both opened up on the hive: Mark with his rifle and Li with her golden gun.

Derrick took the hint and began firing, drooping a couple of Cabal that stood too close to Mark and Li for comfort.

It wasn't long before the Cabal realized what was happening and reacted. They turned around with heavy, hulking steps and began to concentrate their fire on Mark and Li, slowly eating away at their cover.

When Li's golden gun ran dry, Mark took cover and handed his rifle off to Li, taking her sidearm from her.

He took the weapon in one hand and dashed towards the group of Cabal, firing off only a few rounds before jumping high into the air, his fists crackling with electricity as he concentrated and held them in tight before bring them down hard on the ground and igniting it with electricity, shooting sparks and bolts of lightning through the group of Cabal and dropping a number of them in one, fell swoop.

He limped to cover behind a nearby rock. The shock of using his ability was still new to him, and he needed a moment to recover from using it so suddenly.

Li covered him, firing off his rifle wildly at a group of hive before taking cover behind the same piece of rock and handing it back to him.

"What's the matter?" She said with a laugh, "we wearing you out old man?"

Mark let himself laugh at the comment before using the stock of his rifle as a crutch and standing to face the enemy. Derrick had sniped the remained Cabal by time he stood, and then set his rifle aside, hefting his heavy machine gun into position before giving Mark and Li the signal to move forward.

As soon as Mark saw the green light appear on his HUD he dashed forward and into the Cabal bunker. As he ducked down behind the fortification, however, he began to realize how little good it would do him. With the Cabal taken out, little was standing in the way of the Hive that were trying to exit the ship. The other two Cabal positions were giving them hell, but now that the Hive were on to the newly arrived Guardians, they seemed more intent on taking them out.

A wave of thrall bigger than anything Mark had ever seen was surging towards their position, and if Mark and Li didn't do something quick, neither of them would survive.

Mark drew his heavy machine gun and Li pulled out her side arm. Both of them then vaulted over the top of the metal lined trench, setting their feet in the red sand before unleashing a torrent of rounds upon the incoming Hive. Combined with Derrick's fire, they seemed to be able to stem the flow of thrall for the moment.

Slowly, however, they began to build up, and the horde began to become too much for the Guardians to handle. The waves of thrall closed on Mark and Li like an all consuming landslide.

A hundred feet, fifty feet, twenty feet, ten feet, and then they were right on top of them.

Li was the first to get hit. A Hive thrall, leaping through the air, dove for her and tackled her, ramming its head into her chest and knocking her back.

She cried out in agony as it dug it's claw into her side. Her blood began to spill onto the sand, staining the grains of rust blood red.

"No!" Cried Mark.

Memories began to flash before his eyes, memories of other wars he had fought in. He remembered watching as a soldier lay in a similar position, drenched in mud and screaming as blood slowly leaked from a wound in his side onto the dirt, the life seaming to drain from his pained eyes.

He drew his knife from his sheath on his chest and leapt at the thrall as more began to close on Li. He felt his hands begin to charge with that unexplainable, white fire electricity he had been scared of before, but now he welcomed it. As he slammed his knife again and again and again into more and more thrall, he felt the electrical discharge build up inside his hands. It began to burn, but he held on, building up as much electricity as he could until he couldn't take it any longer.

When he could no longer hold the electricity inside of him, he slammed his fists into the ground in a powerful fist of havoc, unleashing a torrent of lightning that electrified the ground and sent sparks shooting in every direction. Some of the thrall tried to flee, but it was no use. The crowd of twisted Hive denizens was electrified and consumed by the light Mark had unleashed.

He collapsed to the ground, exhausted and panting from exertion. The air around him smell like ozone and burnt flesh. He was sweating an unbelievable amount and could hardly keep his eyes open. That burst had taken every last bit of energy he had from him.

As he rolled over into his side, however, what he saw made it all worth it. Li was laying next to him, bleeding, but very much alive. She was crying out in pain from the wound she had suffered, but the light had spared her the effects of his discharge. He had prevented the Hive from claiming another life.

He saw someone else come into his view, snapping off quick shots from his sniper rifle as he moved toward them.

 _Derrick_ , he thought with a sigh of relief.

The red and gold clad Warlock grabbed Li by the back of her cloak and dragged her back into the Cabal trench. Moments later, he felt himself grabbed from behind as well, and dragged over the side of the trench. He took a hard fall as he hit its cold, metal floor, but at least he was out of the line of fire.

Derrick reached down and slammed a syringe loaded with adrenaline into the infusion tube on his armor, and almost instantly Mark felt his eyes snap open and his senses return to normal. It did nothing for the splitting headache he had, but at least he was alive and alert.

"Help Li," snapped Derrick before he threw a tube of biogenetic coagulant his way.

Mark caught it out of mid air and nodded. Derrick began taking pot shots at the remaining Hive, who had now fallen back to the inside of the ship, while Mark moved to help her.

He knelt down and readied the syringe, but noticed Li's Ghost was already hard at work on diagnosing her. She let out a blood curdling scream and gulped in air as the Ghost used a beam of hard light to touch her wound. The Ghost backed off quickly, and turned to face Mark, it's eerie, glowing eye piercing him straight through the heart.

" _Your coagulant won't work Guardian_ ," it said flatly.

It highlighted Li's wound with the beam of its eye, and before long Mark began to notice the dripping green matter that was pouring out from her wound.

" _The thrall's fingertips must have been laced with some sort of poison. It's stopping her from bleeding out, but it's also eating her slowly from the inside out. She won't die for another day, but if we don't get her back to the tower she'll die a very slow death._ "

The Ghost's utter bluntness crushed him. He had done this to her. He and put her in danger, and now it might cost her his life. He would come back for whatever was on that colony ship another day. Right now he needed to save his ally. No, his friend.

He looked up to Derrick, who had ceased firing by now. The remaining Hive looked to have pulled back into the Colony Ship, and other than a few thrall that wee hardly worth a round anyway, all was quiet. Mark tapped Derrick on the shoulder, tearing him away from his rifle's scope, and shook his head.

"We've got to get out of here," he said somberly, "the Hive poisoned Li with something. It's not good. She needs to get back to the tower."

Mark didn't expect the reaction he received from Derrick at all. He snapped around and depolarizer his visor, a glare that could cut plasteel was aimed right into Mark's eyes. Mark saw a little bit of himself in that glare. He imagined Derrick was digging up long forgotten memories right now, but while Mark had welcomed every memory he had been able to retain, Derrick was hurt by the very thought of what had happened in the past.

Was he thinking of that female Guardian? The one Li had mentioned. Was he remembering her dying in his arms? Mark moved to ask, but before he could Derrick grabbed his shoulder and pushed him back. Derrick tore off his helmet in a violent rage as Mark slammed up against the other side of trench. Derrick's eyes blazed with furry as he stared him down. The forgiveness that Derrick had given to Mark was gone, now he was just as scared and infuriated as he had been when Mark had first met him.

"You son of a bitch," he cried out, "I fucking knew it from the moment I laid eyes on you. You're green, you get people killed, and you don't belong here."

Mark instinctively raised his hands in front of his face, expecting Derrick to throw a punch. Adrenaline was clearly coursing through him, and Mark knew that could make anyone unpredictable. Mark didn't want to hit him though. From the look in his eyes Mark could tell he was already in a lot of pain. This loss had ripped him apart from the inside out. He did a good job of hiding it, but all that anger was nothing but a cover for fear and sorrow.

Before he could do anything stupid, however, a shot rang out from nearby in the trench.

Both Mark and Derrick looked over to see Li propped up against the side of the trench. She held her smoking sidearm in the air, her hand shaking from the effort it took to keep it there. The moment she could she let her hand clatter back to the ground, a groan of pain escaping her as her hand brushed her side.

"Will both of you get a grip," she said through clenched teeth, "I'm not dead yet."

She muffled another cry of pain as she stood and braced herself against the side of the trench, looking Derrick in the eyes. Normally her expression was dead calm and unyielding, showing little of what she was thinking, but now she let herself be read like an open book.

She looked hurt: as hurt as Derrick was at least, maybe more. She kept her eyes locked on his, not ready to let this go until she was ready.

"Derrick, I know you miss her," she said more gently than usual, "she was good. Good to you, good to me, good to everyone, but now she's gone...and I'm sorry about that, but she wouldn't want you to sit here and be angry while we have an objective to complete."

Derrick looked like he was trying to form a response, but nothing came out. He dropped his fists and backed up against the wall of the trench. He took a deep breath and reached down, picking up his helmet and putting it on.

Li smiled at him, if only briefly, before turning to Mark. She dropped her smile and sat back down against the side of the trench, groaning loudly in pain.

"We'll cover you Mark," she said through gritted teeth, "you get over there and figure out what the hell the Hive is hiding."

Mark wanted to protest, to say that she came first and that they could come back another time, but before he could even open his mouth she gave him a glare that told him she wasn't about to take no for an answer.

Mark nodded, and looked to Derrick, who had already set up with his sniper rifle on the side of the trench, giving him a nod and letting him know he should get going. Mark picked up his rifle, and vaulted over the top.


	7. Chapter 6: never gonna heal

**AN: sorry about the wait once again. I've had lots going on in my personal life(mostly good, so no need to worry :D) but hopefully I'll be back to work soon!**

 **Enjoy Guardians.**

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Mark's head pounded, and his lungs burned as he sprinted towards the wrecked colony ship. He met no resistance as he ran. It seemed as though in his outburst he killed too many hive or they ordered a retreat. It was also possible, they waited inside the ship to ambush him. Either way, he wasn't going to take any chances.

As he approached the ship's rusted hull, its name came clearly into view. _USS Final Frontier_ adorned its crew module in bright, white letters along with a flag bearing thirteen stripes and one large star, surrounded by the words Earth, Luna, and Mercury, no doubt the planets the nation that built this ship laid claim.

A memory flashed through his mind at the sight of the flag. This memory was far more vivid than the last few. He remembered walking onto a ship much larger than this one, a ship with hangar bays and orbital deployment shoots designed to carry ships, men, and material no one alive today had ever seen. He remembered looking down the hallway and seeing a young, redheaded woman standing next to a computer console, feverishly typing in commands and cataloging information from a manifest she held in her off hand.

As he approached, she didn't slow down. Her eyes were fixed tightly on the screen in front of her. She didn't notice his presence until he was standing right next to her.

"Lieutenant," he said dryly, hoping to get her attention.

The sound of his voice so close to her caused her eyes to widen as she jumped in surprise and turned to face him. She frantically sat down the manifest she was holding and smoothed the wrinkled blue fabric of her digital camouflage uniform. Her floundering unfolded a name tape and her rank. Mark's eyes scanned it quickly: Lieutenant Clearwater. Mark's heart skipped a beat. He quickly glanced to the patch on her shoulder; USNEXOWARCOM, or United States Navy Exoatmospheric Warfare Command…Amanda!

She brushed her grease covered red hair away from her face revealing a set of deep, green eyes that were bloodshot with exhaustion yet full of life, and delicate facial features that seemed out of place with her athletic build. She smiled at him and extended a hand.

"Staff Sergeant Kelly," she said, her grip soft and her eyes looking everywhere but his face. "Sorry about the mess, it's a pleasure to meet you."

Mark paused for a moment and let out a small laugh before accepting her hand.

"Likewise," he said with a smile. "May I ask why I'm meeting you today?"

Amanda returned to her computer and began typing furiously, dodging the question like it was hot plasma her shoulders tensed and her hands pressed down flat onto the keyboard, leaving a mangled collection of letters on the screen, that she

then quickly erased. Whatever it was, she didn't want him to know, but it clearly wasn't anything small. A ship of this size has not been brought into active service for nearly twenty years. Not since the traveler arrived in the solar system.

The only conflicts Mark was during humanity's so called _Golden Age,_ were series of brush fire wars and a few large scale terrorist movements, most of which were handled by bomber strikes and a few Green Berets like himself. They were one of the last true fighting forces left. Most of humanity's other armies were just for show and threats nowadays. Arms races long since turned to cold wars.

He raised an eyebrow at her apprehension.

"Lieutenant?" He asked one more time.

She looked him in the eyes and sighed before moving over to a nearby viewport, and gesturing for him to stand next to her.

"Everything I'm about to tell you is classified," she said apprehensively. "You know that, right?"

Mark laughed and smiled.

"Ninety percent of my life is classified, ma'am."

He meant the comment as a joke, and maybe he was reading too much into her dark and expressive eyes, but Amanda seemed to see the sad truth in it regardless. She dragged her hands across the glass of the viewport and pulled up a navigational map of the solar system, before zooming in on a small civilian outpost on Pluto, the edge of humanity's expansion into the universe.

"This is Pioneer station," she said while pointing to it, "A couple of months ago it started to detect strange energy readings headed our way from outside the solar system, something akin to a lightning storm. We thought it might be some kind of small collection of dust propelled through the ISM by stellar winds, but upon closer inspection, however, we discovered it was the signature of a group of impulse drives using crude, electromagnetic propulsion systems that are also somehow powerful enough for intergalactic travel.

Mark nodded, hoping he understood all the important parts of that. He knew that intergalactic travel was impossible, even with all that humanity achieved. The only thing known to have entered this system made by anything other than nature was the Traveler, and it did little by way of talking in all its time in the Sol System. Maybe it had something to do with this?

Amanda scanned his eyes and shook her head, as though she knew exactly what he was thinking, before returning to the screen.

"I know what you're thinking. It has to be related to the traveler," she said with a hint of disdain. "That's what everyone I've told about it seems to think. I barely managed to convince the Joint Chiefs of Staff otherwise."

The JCS? Mark considered the Lieutenant's words. If that were true, then she's got friends in high places. If the JCS were personally involved in this, that meant this might be a first contact scenario, something Green Berets like him trained for since the Traveler arrived. Until now, however, humanity's concern about running into another alien race were never realized.

Amanda didn't linger on that shocking revelation for long, however.

She pointed to the grainy image from pioneer station of what was approaching them, taking particular care to note the showers of sparks and electricity that were pouring from what seem liked a formation of ships.

"The propulsion technology of this craft match nothing we've seen from the Traveler. They're crude, but they get the job done with impressive efficiency. I hope it's nothing, and that this will be no sweat off all our backs, but if it isn't..." She said with a sense of foreboding.

He served with people like her before, and he could clearly tell that running through her mind at a million miles a second were the anxious thoughts that usually went along with people that possessed her level of intelligence. They were always analyzing, reanalyzing, and invariably over analyzing every situation and thinking light years ahead of the here and now. A lot of those men and women wound up dead, but some only needed a little bit of grounding to get them through the mission at hand.

"I think we can handle it, ma'am," he said in a calm tone with a reassuring smile.

She peeled her head from its resting position on the console in front of her, her messy red hair falling in front of her face as she reached for a cup of coffee next to her and finished it in one go. She closed her eyes for a moment and then looked back at him with a smile.

"You special forces types, always so damn optimistic," she said with a laugh. "Glad to have you."

The memory ended on Amanda's smiling face, framed by stark white bulkheads and tousled red hair. He felt relieved to see someone so important to him so happy. It was a sight he hadn't seen in a long time. Maybe even longer than he realized.

It couldn't last long, though. He ignored it and stay focused as he over to breach the colony ship. He didn't need any distractions as he moved to blow the place wide open and make an entrance. He ran to the cargo module of the spacecraft, which consisted of a large, open section at the center of its body. If the device he was looking for was still here, this would be where it was stored.

When he reached the crew escape hatch on the module's side, he found that the Hive and the Taken welded it shut from the inside with brilliant solar light. Seeing no quiet way to open a door with this much reinforcement, Mark took a few steps backward and prepared for a shoulder charge

He left at the door at full speed, before ramming his shoulder headlong into the door. The force of hundreds of pounds of powered armor and the energy applied to it impacted the door and made a tremendous sound as metal sheared from metal and the door was ripped from its hinges, landing several yards inside the spacecraft.

Mark stumbled from the force, and the sudden lack of anything to stop him once the door gave way, but he managed to recover by tucking into a roll and avoided hitting a nearby bulkhead. Once he had his head back on his shoulders, he sprang to his feet and scanned the room, rifle at the ready.

He nearly dropped it, however, when his eyes met the room before him. The cargo module of the ship was cavernous, leaving a wide open space filled with waist deep sand and punctuated by a few shafts of light coming from the ceiling. It was far from empty, hoever, because every inch of available space was taken up by a mix of Hive Thrall and Taken Thrall.

Mark's mind all but froze. A part of him considered laying on the trigger of his rifle and hoping to take out enough of them to give his fist of havoc time to recharge, but his mind was smart enough to realize the futility of this idea. He spun on one foot and tried to jump clear of the module before the Thrall inevitably came pouring through. His foot caught on the hatch, causing him to stumble and fall on his face.

Mark figured that by this point any hope of running was dashed. He rolled onto his back. With his rifle aimed at the hatch, he might catch a few Thrall as they came through. They never came.

He held his shaking hands steady, with his weapon pressed firmly to his shoulder as he waited and waited and waited for his death. After a moment he dug his feet into the sand and desperately pushed himself back before staggering to his feet and clinging to the side of the ship, but still, no Thrall came through.

"What in the hell?" He wondered.

He eventually built up the courage to look in through the hatch and see what was going on. He swept his rifle over the hatch, but no Thrall opposed him. Looking back further into the fuselage of the spacecraft, he found where all the Thrall disappeared to. The Thrall weren't massing for an attack, they were gathering for a retreat. A large portal appeared in the center of the decrepit ship, and the thousand plus Thrall began to file back through it like a stream of water.

Mark fired angrily into the crowd of Thrall, dropping two mags of ammo into their backs. He cursed them for what they did to Li, and Amanda. He dropped maybe fifteen or so Thrall before he decided it was useless. They didn't have any interest in him. The loss of a few of their brethren made no difference to them. They would follow orders to the letter.

Mark describe to crouch and wait for the Thrall to leave so he could pick up the pieces of what was left of the ship. Five or so minutes later the last Thrall stumbled through the portal. It sealed shut behind them and disappeared. The sickly, green glow of the portal went with it, leaving the Martian light filtering through the many cracks in its rusted hull as the ship's only light source.

He took a moment to survey the ship, and immediately regretted his decision. From the inside, it was even more of a wreck than it was from the outside. The ship appeared to have been stripped down to begin with so that it could reach Mars faster without all the dead weight. This left little structural support to keep it together through the years. Nearly every beam that supported the craft was rusted through. Miraculously, however, live, sparking wires dangled from the ceiling. Sealed in another compartment, the ship's reactor must have survived the crash and the years of being degraded. That meant that the ship's computer systems still worked, and if one place in the world had information on Amanda, it was here.

Mark waded through the waist deep sand that occupied the fuselage towards a bank of computers on the other side. He flicked his palm open, and his ghost materialized. Without even having to guide it, the small AI silently began to work on the booting up the computer. Miraculously, it snapped to life the moment the ghost began to interact with it. The beam of manipulated photons the ghosts worked with could perform miracles, but given the dilapidated state of this computer, Mark was still impressed.

He reached up and wiped the back of his hand over one of its monitors, freeing the dust and rust from it and revealing a login screen. The ghost quickly guessed the password using a simple algorithm, and the computer opened for Mark to use.

He reached forward and gingerly pressed one of the old, plastic keys. When it clicked and didn't break, he began to sift through the ship's files. Most of it was telemetry and navigational data along with weapons targeting algorithms, but miraculously, a few video files survived. He scrolled through a list of security recordings for this very room of the ship, starting with a few days after it left Earth.

Back then, the ship looked a whole helluva lot better than it did now. Its walls were a sharp, prototype white in color, with harsh, white light illuminating it. Banks of computers, racks of weapons, scientific equipment, cryo pods, and even a small Armored personnel carrier secured to a pallet all adorned the cargo bay, packed nearly and tied down. What caught Mark's eye, however, was the device in the center of the room. It was the Vex device, the one he came here for. The device, at one point, was only feet from where he was right now. Now it was missing once again like it always seemed to be.

Mark decided to play the recording at an extremely fast pace.

As the crew raced about the ship in the high-speed video, they quickly decided all of the equipment they brought with them would be worthless if it slowed their trip to Mars. Weapons went first, then scientific equipment, then unnecessary computers. The turret and armor plates were cut off the APC, and it was converted into a flatbed. The Vex device was loaded onto it by a forklift and secured.

Immediately afterward, the forklift was also thrown from the aircraft.

The center of the ship was now adorned with almost nothing. Only the cryo pods, the computer terminal he was currently watching the recording on, and a pile of military equipment remained in the hold. The military equipment consisted of a few rifles, several boxes of ammunition, and a few heavy machine guns all welded to mounts on various point of the APC.

To Mark, it looked like the Marines stationed on the ship set the vehicle up for a suicide mission. It looked as though they planned to use the vehicle to charge the Black Garden. Maybe they hoped that they would make it through to the other side and save humanity by activating the device. The only question was whether or not they succeeded.

If they did, he might never see Amanda again. If they didn't, the result may be the same.

He continued to jump through the recording, this time right up to the point where they were about to enter the natural atmosphere. The ship looked to be going completely haywire as red warning lights flashed in all directions. Mark paused the video and zoomed in on one of the consoles the technicians were using.

 _WARNING!_ It said in all caps, _multiple contacts off the port side. Cabal Devastator class vessels. Recommend immediate evasive action._

Mark sighed. So at least he knew how the mission ended. There was no way a simple colony ship could survive an assault by the armada of Cabal craft that claimed the surface of Mars, however, many thousands of years ago. He hoped against hope that Amanda didn't die in the crash.

As soon as the thought crossed his mind, he watched as she dashed across the camera's field of view. She and a group of assorted personnel were all making for the cryopods. One by one they all sealed themselves into their caskets and waited for the ship to descend to the surface of Mars as a smoking wreck.

Amanda checked each of the pods personally before entering her own. He couldn't make out the details in the feed, but he swore he saw her sob before stepping into the pod and sealing herself in. The pod barely had time to freeze before the atmosphere inside the ship began to heat red hot, and then the feed cut, presumably as it hit the surface of the planet.

Without even searching for any more information Mark immediately spun around and began to check for anything he saw in the video. The cryopods, the weapons, the APC. All of them were gone. The only thing left in this module was sand and a few spilled containers that no longer held anything. Did the Cabal scavenge it all? Did the hive steal it? Did they have Amanda's body and whatever she was transporting?

He got his answer as he spun around to look back at the computer. Two more files were marked as priority aside from the main surveillance feed. One looked to be an unmarked video file transmitted to the ship from an external source post-crash, and the other was a personal log from US Navy TECHINT officer that was stationed aboard this ship.

Amanda! Mark realized. It must be.

Without even thinking he snapped up the video. Sure enough, the emerald eyed beauty that haunted him from halfway across the galaxy appeared before his eyes. She looked exhausted. Her eyes were bloodshot, and the fatigue weighing her down shown through in her slumped posture and solemn expression. No memories flashed back to him from this image. Was he seeing this for the first time?

Amanda frowned as she adjusted the camera to record a video log. In the background, he could see the APC being worked on by a group of marines. This was filmed while she was en route to Mars.

"Normally I would start with the date and time," said Amanda as she pinched the bridge of her nose, "but hell if I know what time it is on earth while I'm halfway across the galaxy. Besides..."

She sighed heavily and paused for a moment.

"It's not like there's an Earth left to go back to," she said heavily.

"Anyway," she continued, "Lieutenant Amanda Kelly log number ten Enroute to The Black Garden on Mars."

Kelly? Though Mark, stunned as he heard her speak, Amanda Kelly?

He didn't have time to dwell on this before he was cut off by the voice of Amanda's ghost.

"We've almost finished modifying the device to load onto the back of the APC, and the marines have spent most of their time doing their favorite activity. Fitting a hundred pounds of weapons into a five pound bag," she said with a distinct eye roll, "anyway. Once that device is rigged up, I will be the only one able to activate it. We should be able to get it into the Black Garden if we move quick enough and with enough of an element of surprise. The Gate Lord's eye we stole should be able to get us into the Garden, and the Vex construct we built around the device should keep them from realizing it's an electromagnetic pulse weapon. Vex chassis are EMP shielded, but this bomb has enough nuclear material in it that it should be able to do some damage anyway. Hopefully."

Amanda paused for a second. She closed her eyes tight and stifled a sob, forcing herself not to cry. Flashes of her crying broke through the fog of his memory. The same flashes he felt many times before. Her nails felt like flechettes that dug into his back and threatened to split his heart in two.

He remembered always resisting the urge to tell her not to cry when she broke down like this. It cut him deep to see her in pain like this. All he wanted was to see her content again, but keeping her from releasing her sadness would be a cruel and selfish way to react to a small amount of discomfort.

He remembered crying a few times too, on long nights after battles where his soldiers were killed. He would do well to remember that.

She looked back at the camera with bloodshot eyes, not allowing herself to cry.

"God I miss you, Mark," she said heavily. "Why did you have to leave me like this? We were supposed to face the world together!"

She spat the last part with a hint of anger before reaching down to her finger for a ring on her left hand. She yanked it off and wound up like she was going to throw it, but stopped herself before she could. She curled her fingers angrily around it, and then clutched the small, diamond and gold band close to her chest, and stayed like that for a long while.

"At our wedding, you said we'd be together," she rambled. "Why aren't we together?"

Mark stopped listening to the recording a few moments ago. Memories were shooting through his head like bolts of lighting. The life he lost was coming back to him in flash after painful flash.

The sight of the ring, the mention of their marriage, and the sweet sound of her voice brought everything back to him.

He remembered what happened on that first voyage to the stars with Amanda. He remembered how he and his men were deployed to the surface of Pluto to meet with the Fallen scavenging party that descended to its surface. He remembered how they savagely attacked: electrocuting, stabbing, and shooting his men with all manner of awful weapons. The smell of burnt flesh permeated the terraformed air of the planet as he and what remained of his team fled from the overwhelming force.

When they returned to the ship Amanda disappeared, and Mark ran off to find her. He found her near that same viewport where he found her earlier that day. She was collapsed on the floor crying, her bright green eyes now bloodshot and soaked with tears. He knelt down next to her and wrapped his arms around her. He knew it was a wildly inappropriate gesture considering that she was an officer, but she seemed to accept it nonetheless.

That was the first taste of death in her military career. That can do a lot to a person.

She wrapped her arms around him, digging her nails into his back, and cried hard for the better part of an hour. This was the first time he took her into his arms, and even when he lost his memories, this would be a piece of how he would remember her.

He remembered their valiant fight to keep the Fallen and the many other races of The Darkness at bay, and how their need for mutual comfort developed into attraction, and attraction into love.

He remembered that fateful day, shortly before the solar system was to be overrun, that he and Amanda wed. It was a simple ceremony. Only a few remaining members of his unit and a civilian pastor they evacuated from Venus were in attendance. It was short, sweet, and to the point. They said their vows and I dos and kissed like their lives depended on it.

He took her hand in his and ran his finger over the ring he gave her and smiled down at the flame red haired beauty that he could now call his wife.

"I promise we'll be together Amanda. No matter what happens," he said in earnest.

The words sounded distant in his head, but the message was clear as day. Now he knew why he needed to find her.

His mind was in shambles. His head ached from the overload of memories, but the pleasure of having his life back more than made up for it.

On a hunch, he reached for his knife. Some distant part of him told him the reason he kept it despite being offered a better, tower made blade, was that if he unscrewed the handle, he would find a small gold ring. Sure enough, he did.

As the small piece of metal fell into his hand he clenched it tightly, never to let it go. Finally, he found who he truly used to be. He was no longer a lost soul searching to get his life back. He was Staff Sergeant Mark Kelly. A husband, a soldier, and a Guardian.

When the recording closed, he hastily clicked on the next one, hoping to find more information on where Amanda was.

The video popped into the window. It showed a recording from a single security camera mounted on one of the ship's airlock's facing inward. The words: _Warning. Movement detected. Recording activated,_ adorned the top of the video feed. The hangar looked much more intact in this shot than it currently did. Mark could see the cryopods, old weapons, debris, and even the APC with the Vex device loaded onto it. Mark checked the time stamp. It was taken only twelve hours ago.

He began to wonder how all of this equipment could have possibly been moved out that quickly, but the question quickly answered itself. A Hive portal, much like the one he saw the Thrall dashing off into when he approached the ship. Hive of all kinds poured through the gap. A horde of Thrall and acolytes thundered through the ship and out through the airlock into the Martian sands, probably to eliminate any nearby Cabal.

The flood of creatures was so great that he almost didn't notice what came behind them. Several, large Ogres commanded by a Witch came lumbering through when the stream of Thrall dried up. The Witch darted around the room, illuminating it with an eerie, green glow that made the ship look even more aged and decayed than it did. It inspected some pieces of equipment in the ship's hold, then turned to the Ogres and let out a blood-curdling scream.

They seemed to get the message. After roaring back, one of the ogres wordlessly stomped over to the Vex device and tore it off of the APC with one, massive hand. The remaining ogres picked up various important looking pieces of technology from the ship's hold and carted them back through their portal into whatever Hive shit hole they came from.

The Witch, however, stayed behind. With the hold now clear, it floated over towards the cryopods, the only thing the ogres had yet to take with them. It scanned the pods, looking for anything that might be useful. Most of them were cracked or crushed during the crash, killing most of the crew. One, however, still had a few blinking lights on it, and seemed to have survived intact.

When the witch finally stumbled upon it, it shrieked in approval. It opened its hand's palm up and recited a hideous chant that could only be described as a spell, and then let the green energy flow from its body and into the cryo pod.

The pod's lights blinked red, and then it popped open. A flash of steam from flash-vaporized cryo fluid boiled up from it, and out tumbled a single occupant. She gasped for air and flailed around on the floor in pain, trying to suck in her first breath in hundreds of years.

When she finally caught her breath, she stumbled to her hands and knees, revealing a young woman with flame hair and emerald eyes.

Amanda.

Mark could see the wheels turning in her head as she dug her hands into the Martian sand that now filled the floor of the ship. She wasn't expecting to wake up when sheltered that cryo pod. This awakening must have been very similar to his. He wondered if she had any concept of how much time passed since she went to sleep.

She coughed and hacked and fought to clear her eyes as she lay face down on the floor, her uniform soaked and her hair matted to her face. Eventually, she gave one final cough and opened her eyes. A quick look up put her face to face with the hideous hive witch. She cried out in terror and dug her hands into the sand as she failed to get away from it pressing her body against the cryopod. She let out a horrified streak as the witch motioned for her Thrall to grab her. Amanda back pedaled and fumbled with the latch of the small weapons locker next to her cryopod. She frantically drew her service pistol from it and pointed it in the direction of the thrall before firing it indiscriminately at them. One of them was struck square in the face, killing it instantly. The other roared in rage and went for her throats with its skeletal hands. Her eyes went wide as it's talons wrapped around her, before it proved the gun out of her hand and drug her, kicking and screaming, towards the portal they entered through.

Mark couldn't watch. Anger and sorrow ripped through him as he dug his hands hard into the computer console. How could he have been resurrected from the dead just to wake up and find this? Surely there was some purpose behind all this?

It wasn't long after that that he heard the familiar sound of his ghost materializing next to him.

"Hmmm," it said, oblivious to the state of the Guardian it was supposed to care for.

"If I am interpreting the Hive's language correctly, the hive raided this after discovering references to it in old earth military archives. They must have been after the bomb Lieutenant Kelly was transporting. The time stamp on this video states it was taken a month ago, and no detonations exceeding 500 megatons have been recorded since then, learning me to believe they still probably possess the bomb."

Mark was too broken to be angry at his ghost's insensitivity. Right now, he just needed any hope that Amanda was alive. If the timestamp was a month ago, that meant Amanda spent a month in Hive captivity, but she's strong. She could survive it.

"Where..." Said Mark, clearing his throat as he fought to regain control of himself.

"Where do you think they took her?"

The ghost whirred and clicked as it processed the likely destinations. Every moment it took felt like an eternity to Mark. How long would it be until he finally found her, dead or alive?

"The most logical destination for a weapon of this size would be the Hive dreadnought. It's the center of their force deployment and command structure. They no doubt are holding Lieutenant Kelly so that she can give them access to the bomb's controls and detonation protocols."

A bittersweet feeling crossed over Mark. If the hive were indeed holding her she was at least alive, but it crossed his mind that life may very well not be worth living as a prisoner of the Hive.

He wasn't going to waste any more time sitting around.

"Derrick," Mark said into his comm.

"Is the jump ship ready?"

"Affirmative," came the response a moment later.

"I stabilized Li for the ride back. She should make it to the tower. The warlocks there are a lot more skilled healers than I am."

Mark sighed in relief. Maybe they wouldn't be losing anyone this mission.

"Copy that."

"Transmatting to you now."

Mark's ghost settled into his hand as he began to transmit sequence. This journey was coming to an end, one way or another, and no matter what, he was going to complete it. Maybe the traveler had some grand plan for him, and maybe it didn't. Either way, the hive would rue the day they crossed him.

As his body began to dissolve for transport, his mind began to relax.

"Hold on Amanda. I'm coming."


End file.
